I have of consistent curious mind partly my nature and partly, I’ve discovered, linked with neurodivergence. I am always uncovering, x-raying, exploring and connecting concepts and ideas. This leads me to asking why a lot, this is a wee bit context for the following blether…
We hear it all the time, or maybe I do in the echo chamber of social media, “life happens in the grey”. But sometimes in the questions we ask and in the way we speak we are encouraging rigid or stuck ways of being.
I’ve had a wee bit of a revelation recently... why are fluid, moving parts of our life described and asked with rigidity? I had this realisation in my last presentation for our therapy degree, I wondered to myself who am I now after the journey of becoming a counsellor, and I realised I’m being, I’ve not discovered exactly who I want to be or exactly who I am as a therapist or a person. I’ve discovered and accepted the ebbs and flows, the ever-evolving and ever-emerging parts of me, with the movement and the fluidity of life.
This started with me noticing we ask these questions all the time! Who are you? What do you want to be? What do you do? What about: What are you doing right now? Who are you currently?
These questions can be thought of as fixed, and encourage our responses to be binary. For example, I am a teacher, that’s who I am, we know we are more than one thing, but I think everyday questions can encourage us to minimise our identities as well as the classic “pigeon hole ourselves”. As well as other layers around being stuck or trying to hold on to one aspect of “who we are”…
There is comfort and ease found in certainty. “Ah I know how that person is “or “I know what they do”. This can help us feel safe and comfortable in situations, as well as allowing our brain to predict what might happen.
Yet, binary’s can create extremes and exclude the grey. It can prevent us recognising that it’s ok not to define exactly who we are, where we are or where we want to be, it’s ok to learn and do better, it’s ok to change jobs, it’s ok to live in the ebbs and flows…
We might have a consistent foundation of values, principles, self-worth, etc. but our self-understanding, self-awareness, connection with others is moving with life, its active, it’s evolving and changing as we do.
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